About

With an ever increasing number of qualified Energy Assessors in the UK issuing over 200,000 EPC and DEC Certificates, the need for robust quality assured Accreditation Schemes is paramount to the continued success of the Energy Performance Building Directive.

Quality is always an issue, at Sterling we aim to give Assessors / property owners / investment managers peace of mind knowing that their EPC providers are competent and their calculations and certificates have been quality assured to the highest standard. Our independence as an Accreditation Scheme is paramount; we will not train or provide panel based work to assessors. We believe that our role is Accreditation and to these principles we will hold firm.

Why choose Sterling Accreditation Ltd?

Sterling Accreditation specialises in accreditation – we have a wealth of technical knowledge, Simon Barnes was part of the team which implemented the Energy performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) into the UK and has in depth experience in the legislation and its nuances. The EPBD has been implemented as a mandatory requirement in the UK now for a number of years and currently it is understood that there are some fundamental issues around quality. A hard market and a poor take up on compliance has driven assessors’ fees down dramatically which in turn naturally leads to a reduction in time spent on completing Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), Display Energy Certificates(DECs) and Air Conditioning Reports (ACRs). At Sterling we support assessors by providing a high level of technical support, the tools to do the job and still remain competitive. Our focus is entirely on the energy assessment process, accreditation of the Energy Assessors and their subsequent support to carry out the work effectively.

From a client perspective why would you want this level of service from a scheme?

As a person responsible for procurement of EPCs, DECs or ACRs, it is in your company’s best interest to make sure you receive value from the product you have purchased and not just the cheapest option. You may be aware that CLG have recently implemented measures to improve the quality and consistency of domestic EPCs. CLG will shortly follow the non domestic route of audits on EPC’s for the commercial sector and you could find yourself in a position where your existing certificates could have to be re done if they are not found to be up to the quality standard. We know that you do not bear the primary legal responsibility of ensuring that the resulting output from the Assessors’ work is correct but we are fully aware that you will have concerns about the potential exposure to reputation, penalties and civil action that could arise as a result of poor EPCs, DECs or ACRs.

Sterling’s commitment to quality is to go above and beyond the minimum government requirements. We have constant feedback from assessors belonging to other Accreditation Schemes who confirm that they do not receive feedback when their work is quality checked, so in some cases how do they know they are doing the job wrong or even just picked up bad habits, at Sterling our commitment to Assessors is that we will:

Audit the 1st report for every new member within 30 days of lodgement – if we are not happy with the result we will QA 2 further reports.

Each member will have at least 1 report audited every 3 mths

Audit 2% of total reports within the first 6 mths

We will carry out risk based targeting of reports for further random QA

We have already built in further checks at lodgement to ensure that:
• The assessor has actually been on site
• That the assessor lodging the report actually collected the data ie no data gatherer was used
• We require that a standard set of documents used to collect data on site be sent as attachments with the lodged report

Which means that you the customer will know that your compliance certificates and assessors will have been robustly checked and will give you peace of mind when entering into a property transaction. Energy Performance certificates could be deemed to be just a trading commodity in the current market and not much use for reducing energy in buildings as was originally designed but the fact remains that poorly constructed EPCs , DECS and ACRs could expose your organisation in a number of ways. Remember EPCs are valid for ten years and could potentially become a litigation nightmare if not done properly in the first instance. Incorrect DECs and ACRs could be costing your organisation dearly in missed opportunity to reduce energy consumption in what is already a volatile and expensive energy market.